The Dawn of Power: A Regent’s Rise and Routine

The Forbidden City at daybreak witnessed a meticulously choreographed ballet of servitude each morning, centered around one of history’s most formidable women—Empress Dowager Cixi. Emerging from the shadows of the Xianfeng Emperor’s death in 1861, this former concubine orchestrated a political coup that placed her as de facto ruler of the Qing Dynasty for nearly five decades. Her morning rituals, preserved through the recollections of her ladies-in-waiting, reveal not just personal habits but the very machinery of imperial power.

Within the vermilion walls of the Hall of Earthly Tranquility, Cixi’s waking hours followed a precision that mirrored celestial movements. The 60-year-old dowager, contrary to Confucian ideals of aged modesty, maintained beauty regimens rivaling contemporary courtesans—a calculated performance of eternal vitality to her political subordinates. As palace women later recounted, even the folding of her toilet paper became an art form requiring months of training, where apprentices practiced spraying water through their teeth to achieve mist-like consistency before ironing each sheet with copper implements.

The Theater of Awakening: A Symphony of Subservience

At the first light penetrating through paper windows, a hierarchy of eunuchs and maids sprang into action with military discipline. The ritual began with senior ladies-in-waiting entering the imperial bedchamber—their footsteps measured, their breathing controlled—to draw back the dragon-embroidered bed curtains. What followed was a performance worthy of the grandest Peking opera:

– The Combing Ceremony: Specialized hairdressing maids would reconstruct Cixi’s iconic “liangbatou” hairstyle, its winged silhouette supported by satin-covered frames and adorned with jeweled phoenix pins. The vanity process required exactly 100 strokes of sandalwood combs, each counted sotto voce by a tally eunuch.
– The Cosmetic Alchemy: Camel-hair brushes applied pearl powder mixed with white jade dust, while safflower pigments created the coveted “drunken blush” on cheeks. Most remarkably, the 60-year-old ruler insisted on having her eyebrows redrawn daily in the “distant mountains” style—delicate arches resembling faint hill ranges.
– The Robing Ritual: Twelve layers of undergarments preceded the formal dragon robe, each fastened with hidden knots to prevent any visible creasing. Eunuchs like the infamous Li Lianying would kneel with outstretched arms, presenting embroidered slippers whose soles bore lotus designs—a subtle reminder that Cixi’s feet had never been bound.

This theatrical production served dual purposes: reinforcing the dowager’s divine status while allowing political negotiations to occur under the guise of domestic routine. As recorded by her attendants, Cixi often conducted preliminary state discussions during these morning hours, her reflection in the mercury-backed mirrors serving as both audience and critic to ministerial reports.

The Hidden Labor: Silent Suffering Behind the Splendor

Beneath the gilded surface existed a world of institutionalized brutality. The memoir reveals how palace women endured years of punishing training—one attendant demonstrated holding a scalding teacup motionless for five minutes while performing tasks with her free hand, a skill beaten into her after months of practice. The penalty for imperfection was severe:

– The Bamboo Whip: Senior matrons carried split-cane rods to discipline girls whose hands trembled while lighting the dowager’s water pipe. A single errant spark on imperial robes could mean execution.
– The Language of Pain: As one survivor recounted, “The palace had no lectures—only three teachings: first punishment, then beating, finally death.” Training accidents were frequent; one apprentice allegedly drowned in a vat after fainting during a 12-hour standing drill.

Yet these women developed extraordinary competencies. The tobacco attendant interviewed could simultaneously light a pipe with paper tinder in her left hand while balancing hot liquids in her right—a skill requiring neural rewiring through relentless repetition. Their collective expertise formed an invisible infrastructure sustaining imperial grandeur.

The Chamber Pot Diplomacy: Scatology as Statecraft

Perhaps most revealing was the elaborate protocol surrounding bodily functions. The empress dowager’s “summoning the official room” (传官房) ritual transformed a biological necessity into a ceremonial event:

1. The Precious Vessel: Cixi’s preferred commode was a carved sandalwood masterpiece shaped as a crouching salamander—its ruby eyes glittering, mouth holding toilet paper, belly filled with fragrant cedar shavings to instantly encapsulate waste. This objet d’art, possibly lost during the 1900 Boxer Rebellion, represented the zenith of Qing craftsmanship.
2. The Human Conveyor: A designated eunuch would transport the lacquered chamber pot beneath a yellow dragon cover, forbidden from looking directly at the contents even during cleaning.
3. The Spatial Ballet: Oilcloth had to be laid precisely two square feet across floorboards before the receptacle could be placed, while attendants practiced “blind folding” techniques to handle soiled linens without visual confirmation.

This fastidiousness reflected Manchurian sensibilities—unlike Han Chinese who used night soil for agriculture, the Qing elite viewed bodily waste as ritually polluting. The system also served political ends; control over the ruler’s most vulnerable moments ensured absolute loyalty from hygiene attendants.

Echoes in the Modern World: From Palace to Popular Culture

The legacy of these rituals persists unexpectedly:

– Beauty Standards: Cixi’s morning makeup routine inspired Republican-era “palace recipes” still sold in Beijing’s Dashilanr district, including the pearl cream now marketed by cosmetic giants.
– Labor Systems: The palace’s meritocratic brutality foreshadowed modern East Asian corporate cultures, where grueling apprenticeships remain valorized.
– Museum Mysteries: The missing salamander commode has become the “Hope Diamond” of Chinese antiquities, with collectors offering millions for its recovery.

Most profoundly, these accounts humanize a figure often reduced to caricature. The dowager who scolded maids for imperfectly ironed toilet paper was the same stateswoman who later initiated China’s first telegraph lines—a juxtaposition of fastidious tradition and reluctant modernity that defined her tumultuous reign.

As dawn breaks over the now-empty Forbidden City, one can almost hear the ghostly echo of eunuchs calling “Lao Foye wan’an!” (老佛爷万安)—a ritual greeting surviving in period dramas but whose original performers lie forgotten. These morning ceremonies, both magnificent and cruel, encapsulate the Qing Dynasty’s central paradox: a civilization capable of exquisite refinement yet built on systematic dehumanization. The wrinkled hands that once folded imperial toilet paper now belong to history, but their stories remain—fragile as rice paper, enduring as jade.